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Caern Characteristics
While the size of each caern varies and the make up of each caern is different there are a few general characteristics which all caerns share. Below is a list of what these things are and what they mean and represent within Garou Society: 1. The Bawn Animals don't necessarily have fences or clear and present borders of lands. There are markers via scent that establish the areas in which territories have been marked specifically by one group or another. For a sept, the bawn is the sometimes invisible boundary that separates the sept lands from the rest of the outside world. Given the fact that it marks the edge of shifter territory it is also the place where the outermost defenses are established. It is not of any particular shape or grand design per se, and the nature or start and end of the bawn varies from Sept to Sept and Caern to Caern. In larger places sometimes the bawn of sept lands may not even be the bawn of the caern. It simply depends on the size and the need. And while the bawn - that edge of sept lands is not often visible any Garou will be able to sense when they've stepped across that barrier. (unless it is a Caern of Stealth, in which case it's more like a surprise - OHAI!). Defenses of a bawn often include patrols led by the Warder and the pack of Caern Guardians, and any pack who wishes to devote time to the Sept. In addition to this spirit alarms are often arranged and made through the brokering of the Sept Ritemaster and the Keeper of the Land. 2. The Graves of the Hallowed Heroes The Garou honor their dead. Founding members of a Sept? Garou, other shifters, and in rare circumstances those kinfolk who have earned respect through thought and deed and die are interred here. Most caerns have such a place, where Garou can honor those who have died - whether in battle or through other honorable means. This is also a place of meditation and spiritual repose for the living - where young Garou are taught that those who are resolute, righteous, and just, will always be remembered. Many septs based in the wilderness will burn the bodies of the dead and bury the bones in these places. Large septs will have small markers for those who truly made a mark, whereas others might have their names recorded in a book. Other septs, city septs might do something with pictures, or items belonging to the dead and a name. 3. Living Area Larger caerns - septs with multiple shifters and families have living space for the sept within the bawn. Usually these living quarters reflect the kind of sept that it is. Those septs that are closer to forests or other types of natural habitats might have homes that are built of materials more suitable for that area. Log cabins. Others may have yurts. It varies and no caern is really ever the same in terms of what it allows. Sometimes kinfolk homes - particularly those of kinfolk who devote themselves to a Sept, will be within the bawn. Othertimes merely pack homes will be within a bawn, whereas the kinfolk spaces might only be a short distance away. Smaller septs may not have this advantage due in part to lack of numbers and available resources. Whatever the case may be, do not expect the living area of the caern to offer much in the way of privacy. 4. Shrines Most religious faiths have them - places where a person can pray to the God/Saint/Deity/Spirit of his or her choice. Caerns are no different. In fact the number of shrines can be few or they can be many. Sometimes packs have shrines within their pack homes, dedicated to their pack totem. Othertimes a tribe may have erected a shrine to their tribal totem in the area. Shrines are palced within the bawn and not the heart of the caern, thus offering kinfolk who are more spiritually inclined a place where they can go and pray as they deem fit. 5. Assembly Area Everyone needs a place to go for a powow. And no meeting place is ever the same. An assembly area in a sept where Aeolus is the Sept Totem may not have walls or a roof, but is instead very open to the wind and the elements. Other Assembly Areas may be wide and have walls and a roof. Some folks get around the whole 'space' concern by holding moot in the umbra, something often done by Septs whose kinfolk are not welcome at moots. The Assembly area is where the Sept meets for moots, challenges, revels, and counsels. It is also the place where visiting Garou are first received. Typically speaking there are usually different 'sections' within the assembly area: a place for general sept members to sit, a place for Sept Elders to sit, and a fire pit (though in Red Talon Septs, this may in fact be replaced by a tree for obvious reasons). 6. Caern's Heart This is the one place within a homid Sept that kinfolk rarely ever tread for it is one of the few places left in the world where the umbra and the realm are one, much as it once was before the Sundering. Here the caern's nature is most obvious and Garou are able to slip into the umbra without spending gnosis or rolling to do so. The pathstone - that which allows the establishment of moon birdges, that in which a totem might infuse some of itself, is often kept here. And it is the place where the most powerful rites are performed. On the rare occasion kinfolk (whether lupus or homid) are brought into this area, they are often accompanied by Garou so as to have a means of rescue should they accidentally wander into the umbra. Category:Werewolf Category:Sept Category:Caern